Hey! I've had my Remo Coated Emperors for 2 hours and they already have a lot of stick marks. I'm using Vic Firth American Classic SDI JRs and I think they're heavy sticks. I think I either play too hard or using the wrong sticks. What are good light sticks that still make a full sound?

Generally speaking, light sticks don't make full sounds. Maple sticks are lighter but crack easy. Coated drum heads get marks on them when you play them. Nothing wrong there. It's the oxidation from the cymbals on the tip of your stick making the marks on your heads. If you have dents then that's different. That's a technique issue. You can't play a coated head and not mark it though.

Generally speaking, light sticks don't make full sounds. Maple sticks are lighter but crack easy. Coated drum heads get marks on them when you play them. Nothing wrong there. It's the oxidation from the cymbals on the tip of your stick making the marks on your heads. If you have dents then that's different. That's a technique issue. You can't play a coated head and not mark it though.

Thanks Larry! I would have never had got that being a second year and all.

I have been thinking about this for some time now. Wood tips mark coated heads with black marks from not very clean cymbals and nylon tips leave white marks on clear heads.
Coated heads = nylon tips. Clear heads = wood tips?

Hey! I've had my Remo Coated Emperors for 2 hours and they already have a lot of stick marks.

And it will probably lose the coating entirely in a few days. :-)

IME, Remo heads just do that. The last one I bought several years ago looked months old just after getting tuned up. The coating was gone within a week.

I've never had this problem with Aquarian. Their coating seems to last forever. You'll generally lose tone before you lose coating with them. I don't have a lot of experience with Evans but the few heads I have played from them were very durable as well.

I'll second that, Remo coating comes off and Evans/Aquar just gets dirty. I've always liked Remo more but started using Evans G2's because of that.
Actually have a question regarding this that might help the poster aswell, Are the Smooth whites Emperors any way compared to the G2's because of the this or a hole new beast entirely? Kinda looking for a Remo head with the Evans coating.

I'll second that, Remo coating comes off and Evans/Aquar just gets dirty. I've always liked Remo more but started using Evans G2's because of that.
Actually have a question regarding this that might help the poster aswell, Are the Smooth whites Emperors any way compared to the G2's because of the this or a hole new beast entirely? Kinda looking for a Remo head with the Evans coating.

I use smooth white Emperors. The white coating is inside of the head, not on top so it does not wear off. I never played evens heads so I cant compare the two but these sound amazing on my kit.

thought about it, ive never owned evens and played them on my drums, ive played them on other kits but not sure which model heads.

Recently, I had one 16" head kind of nick up a bit fairly quickly, but it never flaked off, and never got worse than the few initial spots. It happened within 5 hours or so of rehearsals I'd say. I don't dent the Coated Ambassador either.

Other people have had the Remo coating mess up a lot. Who knows why some people have bad luck and others don't?

Aquarian's single ply coated heads dent up and sound kinda dull for me, but work great for others, so go figure.

I used Aquarian back in '99 or so, before they changed their film. The new stuff was supposed to sound "warmer", closer to Calf--but it was 1999-2000, and how many drummers wanted, or cared about "the calf sound" then?
After the change, they dented to crap on me in less than 1 set on a gig, and sounded thinner. THAT was a big bummer because I really liked their drumheads.
Aquarian has a new film (NU Bright, NuBrite?) now, so I may try them again and see if the old sound I liked is back, but, I have no complaints with the Coated Ambassadors I've used for years now either.

Smooth White heads are made from White Film, there's no coating involved.